The Kit Cat club

The latest book I bought is a radical change from my usual style as it's a political history set in the time of William and Mary. I first came across the book on the shelves at Waterstones www.waterstones.com/blog, but as it wasn't there for long I never had the opportunity to buy it in the shop, however, with the help of Give as you Live www.giveasyoulive.com, not only can I get the book but my sale donates money to the Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund www.rafbf.org/who has been an invaluable help to me in the last two years.

I never thought about the subject in detail before; one reason I chose to try to succeed as a writer is that I am a loner; I find it hard to mix, especially with men. Being a writer meant I could do something at my pace and not have to compete to prove my value to my peers, that is an aspect of my life where I have had continuous problems as I feel inferior most of the time.No matter where I go, or what I do, I feel like an outsider; like a lone wolf seeking shelter.

German TV is shit.

If you have been following my blog, you will know that I have a liking for foreign TV series such as The Bridge, The Killing and Borgen to name a few.Also, you will recall I have no favorite country as I watch shows from as far away as Iceland, Israel, and Finland and as near as France, Scotland and Wales.

This week I bought the German series - Maria Wern - as an experiment. As it had no English subtitles, I thought I'd add some using my VLC Media Player, a big mistake.Last month I added subtitles successfully to my series from Sweden (Irene Huss). You expect some lag between the speaker and the, but Maria Wern is despicable. People speak for minutes, and nothing happens, then you get two lines of subtitles; German TV was this bad when I was over there in 1985.The problem with German TV is that it is made for the home market, and in these days with countries crying for good shows this is a bad market strategy.

Spheroid

This short story is inspired by an article I read in the Scientific American 15 years ago.

Deep in space, a large metallic sphere has been reported on the radar. As the object turns, it creates a magnetic field and a solar system. As it draws the outer planets closer, the small deviations are deadly.

A time when I was going to write books.

Two years ago, I helped a Polish photographer succeed with his KickStarter project, my gift of thanks is a set of photos using his models; the girl with the sword is one of those girls. Many of the girls, thought pretty, did not appeal to me as they were too thin. I was going to use some of the photos as book covers, but all of that is in the past.

Dreams of days past.

When I open my computer I reminded of the days when I was a dreamer - www.alsdominion.co.uk/home/are-you-a-dreamer, and I thought I could get a story published in the Black Library (Warhammer) pages; that dream lasted only three years before I killed it off like many more dreams.

A vote of No Confidence.

If Theresa May had pulled the UK out of the EU two years ago after the Brexit vote, she could have won an election and destroyed Labour for decades. But, she dithered because she never had the smallest intention of heeding the call of the people to LeaveEU. Why should MPs vote to leave when they have accounts in the EU to avoid paying UK income tax?The whole process was no more than a BrexitScam, even more of a scam than Xlibriswww.alsdominion.co.uk/home/xlibris and that is some claim to infamy.

I cannot understand how the working people of the UK could comprehend staying in the EU; all we are doing is supporting Germany by sending over £54 billion a year to stop them from going bankrupt.

A different if not new genre for me.

For no reason, in particular, I have not written a story about Satanism before now.

In the last few weeks, as I decided to end my decade long struggle for recognition and e-book sales as a writer, I have thought several times about correcting this situation. ​Writing this style would not be far from my early days when I won praise for writing excellent ghost stories.

As they say, there's no fool like an old fool, how true that saying is.If I had been wise, I would have quit writing when I was onto a good thing four years ago, and not keep writing in the hope of a revival that never came.Now, four years after my heyday www.alsdominion.co.uk/home/how-great-thou-art , I leave the writing community at the bottom and with an endless source of disenchantment for not only the money I spent last year in buying a book cover but towards those people who abused my help over the years without any thanks.

Did someone know me?

Life is full of inconsistencies; that is what makes life a thrill for me for I have an enquiring mind. Some of the things that once held a mystery I have been able to explain, often it turned out to be mundane, such as how my watch jumped two hours when I was in Germany. In this case, it was later shown to be no more than me putting forward my watch for BST, and forgetting it was an automatic winder; it was the first automatic watch I owned.

There is a connected story to this one. While I was doing my training at Cosford, I thought I could feel a presence in one of the hangars we were moving the planes into for the opening of the museum. Several former pilots have noted that a ghost haunts the Lincoln bomber and the sound of switches being turned on and engines running up has been recorded on video.